Restoring the Password and Master Password Files

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If your webMethods API Gateway is configured to encrypt passwords using Password- Based Encryption (PBE), your webMethods API Gateway will have a master password, which is the key used to encrypt the other passwords. You have to provide the master password whenever you want to change to a new encryption key. In addition, some installations are configured so that webMethods API Gateway prompts for the master password when webMethods API Gateway initializes; without the password, webMethods API Gateway starts up in safe mode. Therefore, if you lose or forget your master password, you have to restore it or reset it, depending on the circumstances.

You can restore passwords if either of the following is true:

  • Your master password and other passwords are stored in files and you have recent backups of both and the passman.cnf file.
  • webMethods API Gateway is configured to prompt for the master password, you have a recent backup of the password file and the passman.cnf file, and you know the master password for that backup.

To restore the master password and other password files

  1. Determine which files you need to restore.
    If your master password is not stored in a file, that is, your webMethods API Gateway prompts you for a master password at server startup, then you can restore just the password file and the passman.cnf file. Otherwise, you must restore the master password file, the password file, and the passman.cnf file from backups.
  2. Determine the name and location of the files.
    The passman.cnf file is always config/passman.cnf located under the server instance’s home directory (APIGateway_directory\instances\instance_name). By default, the master password file is config/empw.dat and the password file is in config/txnPassStore.dat. If you are not sure of the location of these files on your system, look at the file config/configPassman.cnf.
  3. Shut down webMethods API Gateway.
  4. Copy the replacement files to appropriate directory.
  5. Restart webMethods API Gateway.
    Note: Always back up and restore the master password file (if you use one), the password file, and the passman.cnf file together.